Lucknow: The BJP on Friday took strong exception to the passage of a Bill in the UP Assembly scrapping a provision that allows people to seek restoration of their acquired land if it remains unused for more than five years, and appealed to the Governor BL Joshi not to give his assent to it.

"The all important bill aiming to abolish restoration of acquired land to its owner in case it remained unutilized for more than five years was passed by the House amid din with none of the members getting a chance to debate it. We will meet the governor on Friday to appeal to him to return it back as it was against the interests of farmers," BJP chief in the state, Surya Pratap Shahi, told reporters here.

The BJP leader said there are indications that in the proposed land acquisition bill, under consideration of the Central Government, that the land if not used in five years could be returned.

In this background, the bill passed by the Vidhan Sabha in a hurry is indicative of the arbitrary manner in which the government of Uttar Pradesh functions, he said.

The Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill-2011 was on Thursday passed by the Assembly to omit a sub-section in section 17 of the Act regarding restoration of land.

The BJP leader also flayed the Samajwadi Party of stalling the proceedings in the House, following which debate could not be held and said that it was clear that intentions of both - the SP and BSP- were "anti-people and anti-farmers".

Shahi also condemned the state government for systematically withdrawing cases against its Ministers, MPs, MLAs among others and said that it was a violation of the law.

Referring to reports in a section of media, Shahi said that it was because of this practice that law and order situation has deteriorated in the state.

Similar tactics had been adopted by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government, he alleged. "The path was shown by Mulayam Singh while Mayawati has worked on it," Shahi said, adding that the legal cell of the party would be asked to review these cases and see what can be done in this connection. (Agencies)